News Archives
The beginning of the end of parity
As of 20 August, US health plans will not be required to cover the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act – mandated health benefits including emergency services, hospitalization, mental health and addiction treatment services, prescription drugs, laboratory services, preventive and…
THC, psychosis and psychiatric disorders
We know the links between cannabis and psychosis – but never explained in such depth as this research by Australia’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. It shows that the endogenous response to THC operates through molecular pathways strongly associated with…
Canada has made a huge mistake in legalising recreational cannabis – it’s a gateway to serious addiction
Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, believes that legalising the drug will help keep marijuana away from underage users and reduce related crime, but in our experience, addiction to ‘harder’ drugs in our patients stems from them trying cannabis at a…
Gambling addiction becomes more widespread among university students
Gambling seems to be becoming a more serious issue for students at UK universities lately. According to information provided by the UK Gambling Commission, over 100,000 students have debts due to their gambling habits, with 1 in 4 of those having…
National Drug Treatment Monitoring System: drug definition updates
Public Health England has updated business definitions for adult drug and alcohol misuse treatment providers to use when collecting and submitting data to the NDTMS. They are part of a collection of documents that support the reporting requirements for the NDTMS dataset.
Gaming addiction: what we can learn from smoking cessation programmes
Just as tobacco companies made cigarettes more addictive by tweaking the ingredients, games developers add features to their games to keep players addicted – governments must look to the success of other public health campaigns, such as smoking cessation programmes, to…